St. Louis County

11/03/2014

I am running for this seat because I do not agree with the current direction of County Council, and feel other members need an additional & strong common sense voice. I am running, in general, to safeguard public dollars & property rights, stop corruption and prevent new taxes.

What is your legislative agenda?

1) Prevent any further incremental merging of County departments with those in City without a vote of the people.

2) Fiscal notes (price tags) must be attached to all legislation before voting. How can we prioritize our expenses and budget our money if we don't know costs?

3) Request the State Auditor to audit all County Departments. Any problems identified from such an audit can and must be dealt with immediately.

4) A Personal/Company Financial Disclosure (Contractual Relationship Disclosure) for businesses and contractors must be submitted along with quotes for goods & bids for services before County can award contracts. This will help curtail fraud, embezzlement and favors. As a candidate, I had to submit such a form to ensure my position, if won, would not present a conflict of interest and/or risk favors given or received as a result of my position. Contractors and suppliers should not be treated any differently. Given the recent & many scandals, I am disappointed the Council has not already addressed this.

5) Prohibit Councilmen from accepting campaign contributions from developers and then voting on their developments. This is part of the pay-to-play system.

6) Host Town Hall Meetings once per quarter (4 times per year) to encourage citizen input as to the general direction of the County.

7) Change the Council Meeting time to 7:00 PM to encourage more citizen participation in addressing the Council. The Council works for citizens and so should be available when more working citizens are available, after work.

8) Post all legislation online at least one week prior to voting, including Fiscal Notes, so citizens will see what is being decided. This also eliminates the need for a county employee to respond to individual requests for legislation. It also promotes real transparency.

10) No Victim--No Crime, therefore No Jail Tim: Prohibit jail time for failure to pay court costs and fines for violations and minor offenses. Such practice creates more of a problem than it solves given those sentenced to a jail term are often sentenced to a life lacking gainful or sufficient employment. Background checks are the norm and probation or conviction for inability to pay fines constructively excludes people from potential employment. It has been found to be a violation of the 14th Amendment. I thought America gave up Debtor's Prison over 150 years ago.

“I am against a city/county merger.” That simple quote spoken by Rick Stream is why we support Rick Stream for County Executive.

Local Tea Party supporters and liberty minded individuals know that a small unresponsive government cannot become more efficient by becoming a larger government entity. As a general rule, government closest to the people, or by another name local control, is the desire of liberty minded people. A city/county merger would create a larger bureaucratic government.

The people at Better Together, the organization funding and supporting the city/county merger are actually telling crowds at neighborhood meetings in the city, "If you are unhappy with your current city government a merger will improve services by combining the jurisdictions' services. "

Democrat politicians are jumping on the bandwagon. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay initially used the cooperation by the St. Louis city and county police departments in quelling the Ferguson riots as a reason for city/county merger. That was until he instructed Chief Doyle Dotson to remove the city police from Ferguson based on the false pretense that the St. Louis County Police were excessively militarized. Chief Dotson also criticized the use of pepper spray and tear gas by the County Police on protesters, until that too was proved false when it was learned the city police were the first to deploy tear gas at the crowd.

Governor Jay (I Demand Full Prosecution of Daren Wilson) Nixon is now using a city/county merger talk or regionalism, as a way to solve Ferguson’s problems. Every day as the protesters become more persistent and the conduct more outrageous , county residents become even more leery of a merger with the city. Each day city politicians like State Senator Jamilah Nasheed and City Alderman Antonio French interfere in St. Louis County affairs a city/county merger becomes less of a reality.

Rick Stream’s opponent for County Executive, Steve Stenger, has been non-committal on city/county merger, not that anyone should expect much of a committed response on anything from him:

Stenger is aware that county voters overwhelmingly are against a city/county merger, yet he is reliant on union support in this election. Jeff Aboussie, Executive Board Member of the AFL-CIO is also a Board Member for Better Together. Stenger is trying to balance union support versus voters' desires on the merger. The unions must be appeased as Stenger tries to be all things to all voters.

Back in late 2007, then-Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne took a walking tour of the Arch grounds with Bryan Cave attorney Walter Metcalfe and former U.S. Sen. John Danforth. Metcalfe said that Kempthorne, a former Idaho governor, wasn't impressed.

“He said at the time, this is the worst entrance to a national park in the United States,” Metcalfe said.

After the tour, Kempthorne went back to Metcalfe’s office with Danforth, Missouri Botanical Garden President Emeritus Peter Raven and then-Missouri History Museum President Bob Archibald.

I've included a map below so that you can better understand the arduous journey these men under took when they "went back to Metcalfe's office". Looks like a four block walk from the Arch grounds--the green line on the map.

The men probably had to wait for traffic lights while cars zoomed by on I-70 below. Unsurprisingly, Metcalfe took up the cause of revitalizing the St. Louis Arch and boosting the property values of neighboring businesses like his own law firm, Bryan Cave, as well as Arch tax cheerleader Civic Progress.

Part of the Arch improvements include a roof over I-70. That should improve foot traffic from the Arch to Bryan Cave, but since the tax that appears on the April 2nd ballot is a sales tax, downtown law firms will not be collecting it. In short, Bryan Cave will reap the benefits of the Arch Tax while someone else foots the bill.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that in total the tax will raise $780 million over twenty years. What they don't report, is where that money will be raised. If we assume that everyone in the region is hit by the tax about equally, then we can use the 2010 census numbers to approximate how much St. Louis city and county are each contributing to these projects. The 2010 census put the population of St. Louis city at 319,294 and the population of St. Louis county at 998,954. In other words, roughly three-quarters of the funds come from St. Louis county.

If the Arch tax passes, other parks in the St. Louis area will benefit from some of the funding. And a portion is slated for the unaccountable public-private Great Rivers Greenway. The Arch portion is 30% of the project or about $234 million. That means that roughly $175.5 million of St. Louis county funds will be exhausted on a project that boosts the property values of the most valuable land in the St. Louis region. In other words, those who own property adjacent to the area's premiere venues--the top 1%--reap the financial benefits while Target shoppers in the county foot the bill.

03/20/2013

We have written on this race before where you kind find the bigger picture details, so we will not cover those here. It is entertaining watching fire board candidiate, Cole McNary try to have his cake and eat it too, meaning taking the union money while claiming to be the candidate of fiscal prudence. He actually claims to be unaware of their support while Mary Shapiro, a seasoned professional with the Suburban Journals, schrewdly points out
that Steve Swyers, the man McNary claims he will model, is one of the two union endorsed sitting members of the board. Like McNary, Swyers claimed to be a Republican, independent of the union all through his campaign, but Shapiro has officially ended the charade by calling him out. The question now is whether voters will reject the dishonest campaigns of RINOs claiming to be independent of the union or if the six figure woolen eye covering campaigns will lull them into confusion.

24thState has always been about unraveling tangled webs woven by politicans seeking power. For taking the union dough, and opposing the reform faction, Monarch Concerned Taxpayers, McNary deserves to be rebuked by voters a second time. His opponent, Jane Cunningham is not without controversy of her own, but to our knowledge screwing taxpayers is not one of them. McNary is eating the union cheese now so he has chosen his banner even if he will not be honest about it. Monarch Concerned Taxpayers is the rallying organization for taxpayers and the union is the rallying point for well, the union members. Voters, you do the math.

03/18/2013

Prop P, the Arch Tax, which appears on the April 2nd ballot in St. Louis city and county, will distribute 60% of tax receipts to the Public/Private Partnerships of Great Rivers Greenway and CityArchRiver. These organizations collect taxpayer money and private donations to fund their operations. What makes this arrangement bad for taxpayers is that Public/Private Partnerships are not accountable to the taxpayer. If an elected official misspends taxpayer money you can vote that politician out. Public/Private Partnerships can spend your tax money on dreadful projects with no repercussions.

Currently city and county taxpayer dollars fund 70 million dollars to the following Public/Private Partnerships in the city of St. Louis, the Zoo, Art Museum, Science Center, Botanical Garden and the History Museum. Ten million taxpayer dollars fund 2/3rds of the History Museum budget. Unaccountability led to the waste perpetrated by former History Museum President Robert Archibald.

Investigative reporters at the Post Dispatch uncovered that Robert Archibald had purchased with History Museum money a rib shack on an acre parcel of land for $875,000.00 from ex mayor of St. Louis Freeman Bosley Jr. This purchase was made with no appraisal or environmental study. It was subsequently revealed the land has soil contamination and is appraised at $225,000.00.

The only person enriched was Robert Archibald on the taxpayer dime. Charley Dooley can make those types of statements because he is insulated by the Public/Private Partnership arrangement. A No vote on Prop P is a vote for accountability and against corrupt Public/Private Partnerships.

01/24/2013

It has long been the goal of 24tState to be an independent source of breaking news and information with a special focus on equipping voters with specific tactics to act civicly in their own best interest which we can do because we are insiders. Key among these interests is the local fire district elections. The latest occurrence in a crucial race is something we have never seen before but one that is likely a harbinger of things to come.

See the following from an email blast by a taxpayer group in the Monarch Fire District reporting that voters in these normally low key races will see two prominent Republican names square off. All taxpayers need to pay attention to this because there is a simple logic behind the madness.

Yesterday
the Monarch Fire Board race went from a four-way contest to a
conventional race between two opponents. Current Union Director Kim
Evans and recent Union recruit Russell Lake both withdrew from this
election, leaving only Union Candidate Cole McNary and Independent Jane
Cunningham. We believe the Union strategy shifted when Rick Gans
withdrew from this race last week and was replaced with the popular
Cunningham. Gans tells us he is not surprised by Evans' withdrawal as
he was shocked she even filed given her record of tax increases and
support of billing residents for ambulance service. Apparently Lake, a
protégé of Union Director Swyers, decided he was not ready to do battle
in this election.

Now
that the final candidates are clearly known, Cunningham's task will be
to make sure that voters know they are choosing between her opponent,
who will serve the Union as Evans so ably did for six years, and her,
with her well-established record of being the voice of the taxpayers.
We will watch as McNary tries to use his credentials as a former
Republican office holder and his father's well recognized name to make
it appear he will be the choice of conservative voters. The "new"
McNary received Union support last year in his failed Treasurer's race
and he has already surprisingly declared to several that the Union is
supporting him in this race.

We will be updating the website with this development in the next 24 hours.﻿

The reason Jane Cunningham is running instead of Rick Gans is that defeat of any union fire district candidate requires hurculearn effort. The union firefighters have every reason to "invest" in campaign cash and
time in order to elect the people that determine whether they work less
for more or work even less for even more. The taxpayer candidate has to raise funds from friends and family. The typically Monarch candidate will spend $20,000 to the union's $100,000. For taxpayers to look to a seasoned politician with a broad donor base is a shrewd move. Gans, a businessman, made a very selfless act by stepping aside. One can only imagine the pressure placed on Evans to step down from her $1000 per month pay and generous health insurance benefits.

Here is the inside baseball. The other reason firfighters all over St. Louis spend so much on Monarch races is that the union in every other district can point to Monarch as a justification to request more pay. "We do not need to make as much as Monarch, but be close, otherwise we risk losing our best firefighters to them". That is the argument. The typical Monarch firefighter receives well over $100k in compensation
and benefits in exchange for spending eight 24hr shifts doing that
unique job.

Here is another insight into the sad, but dirty politics. Cole McNary is running to join Steve Swyers and Robyn Harris now that Evans stepped aside. Thanks to the tireless work of the watchdog group Monarch Concerned Taxpayers, everyone knows that Swyers' consistent votes in concert with Evans and against Harris reveal that he was lying to voters when he promised to be the taxpayers' candidate, denying he was allied with his son's fellow union firefighters. While "low information voters" fell pray to the machine behind first time candiidate Swyers, the taxpayers paying attention knew that Gans was their guy, clearly on the side of taxpayers.

The taxpayers again, have their "guy" in Jane Cunningham. Now that the union candidate Evans is gone, the union clearly is behind McNary. McNary is now faced with a bigger challenge than Swyers in convincing voters he is independent of the union. Will he really try to tell voters that the union is sitting this one out, content to allow the taxpayers to enjoy a 2:1 majority with Swyers being their only loyalist? Will McNary's former Chesterfield constituents naively retain their trust for the guy who represented them for six years and be shocked when he joins the cagey Swyers and votes with the union? This is going to be a very hard sell for McNary and the union, but they probably have $100k to spend several times over. Taxpayers can only hope that Cunningham can bring her own significant connections and resources to bear as the banner carrier for taxpayers and that voters will see through efforts by McNary to steal that banner.

10/08/2012

Proponents of Prop A have been selling a tainted bill of goods to grassroots conservatives. Supposedly, 'local control' of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department represents the purest of Jeffersonian principles, identified in this quote:

It is by dividing and subdividing these republics, from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government, which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body...

Let the national government be entrusted with the defence [sic] of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, laws, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. (emphasis added)

Perhaps, the omission was quite innocent, but in light of the amount of money being spent for a statewide referendum that really only relates to the City of St. Louis (and its effect on the surrounding counties), I doubt it.

As I have argued in forums & threads, constitutionally speaking there are only two subdivisions: the national government & the governments of the several states. This relationship is governed by the principle of federalism. And as we all know, the national government is one of limited powers, while the state governments are ones of general powers, as discussed in Federalist #45 & enshrined in the 10th Amendment. Generally speaking, state powers consist of safety, health and education, and include state common law consensus on crime, contract and tort.

The current administration of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police does not violate the principle of federalism, and falls within the state power of safety, consistent with the Missouri Constitution. Since we have established that no constitutional or Jeffersonian principle is at stake in the issue of Prop A, we can conclude that this is an issue of policy, and policy always boils down to partisan politics. So, where did this policy of 'local control' originate? Well, from Mayor Slay and the STL City Democrat Machine. If you think they sit on the same side as you in partisan politics, then you would be doing them a favor by voting for Prop A.

I have my own Jefferson quote for this debate:

...unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust.

Does Prop A allow the mass to retain sufficient control? Well, we can follow that question with another, "Has the STL City Democrat Machine ever lost an election?" And, lest someone think I was taking a quote out of context, please check on the source. Interestingly, in this same letter, written from Jefferson to Francois Adriaan van der Kemp, we get the following line:

The only orthodox object of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

What can we glean from this line? Breaking Jeffersonian principle down into baser elements, such as 'local control,' detracts from the primary focus of Jefferson; simply put, "Does this function of government make those it affects happier?" In the case of Prop A, I would have to argue no, in light of the fact that it has already garnered much opposition from conservative grassroots groups & GOP organizations in the STL area which follow:

07/19/2012

Former St. George Mayor Carmen Wilkerson has endorsed Joe Montecillo. Montecillo is a Democrat running against leftist Bob Burns in the Democrat primary for State Rep in Missouri's 93rd district. Wilkerson's complete statement is below.

I also noticed that Burns failed to answer a question on his committee filings: "Do you have more than one candidate committee?" Here's a snapshot from the paperwork for the state house race which he filed in April of this year:

And here's a snapshot from his Board of Trustees candidate filing. This was filed in May of this year:

Did he just miss the question both times? Well, consider that when he filed in January of this year to run for the Board of Trustees--that's the election he lost last April--he didn't have any trouble answering that question:

Has he amended either his filing for the 93rd state house district or his bid for the board of trustees? It looks to me that in January he answered the question and then three and four months later, in April and May, he just skiped it despite the fact that he knew he'd be running as a candidate in multiple races. Why do that?

04/03/2012

The St. Louis Post Dispatch is reporting that Joan McGivney has defeated Bob Burns in their race for St. Louis Community College Trustee Subdistrict 3. With all precincts reporting, McGivney has a 105 vote lead with 6985 votes to Burns's 6880. Congratulations to McGivney!

Stay strong. Someone said brownshirts, and some people got offended by that, but if you look at history, when Hitler took over Germany, they did just that. They disrupted meetings, screaming, and then it got violent, but they were always in the minority.

If you forgot about today's election you'll have another opportunity to vote against Bob Burns so long as you live in Missouri's 93rd State House District. You might even consider taking a Democrat ballot in the August primary and voting for Joe Montecillo.